Draw near to God (Week 8)
GB YA James • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 10 viewsLook at how we need to recognize our sin and be humble to grow
Notes
Transcript
Announcements:
Announcements:
thy kngdome come night Monday and sunday night
2.for the student christmas party we are looking for volneters to make put put holes
3. the hyme sing sinor lunchin needs volenters
4.
Intro:
Intro:
Open up to James 4:1-10, and as you go there i want to recap last week a little bit.
Last week we talked about wisdom and foolishness
We saw that bitter jealousy and selfish ambition blind us they cause division and all kinds of evil
We saw that wisdom that is from above is pure gentle peaceable open to reason full of mercy impartial and sincere
And the passage ended with James 3:18
18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
We see James ending chapter three Talking about peace and that sewing peace produces righteousness
so James goes from this idea of peace in to verse one of chapter 4
Let's go ahead and read our text
Text:
Text:
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Prayer: Let's pray
Prayer: Let's pray
Again James opens up with this question or more likely this statement after talking about peace he talks about the disorder that was apparently in this community
He says
James 4:1–10 (ESV)
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?
James begins to deal with the problem fighting quarrels disorder
And he takes this problem and makes an accusation or an observation of why they're having this problem
That observation is it not that your passions or at war within you?
What do you think James is talking about here the War of the passions within you?
lets look at
23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
I believe James is talking about the war of desire very similar to the war that Paul describes in Roman 7:23 through 25
As Christians there is a war Raging in our hearts between the flesh and the spirit
How many of you have experienced this struggle in your life?
Personally for me I fully understand this because I have a struggle where I desire to be known to be successful to be recognized to receive glory for myself
But at the same time I have this desire and struggle that God be glorified and God be recognized and this creates a war in my soul
Have you experienced this before?
What does it look like for you?
You don't have to share but I would write down what are the things in your life that are fighting against your desire to please God
What are the passions or desires that are keeping you away from God
And I want us to understand that God doesn't want to keep good things from us but he desires us to be trusting in him as our father
Often times the problem might not even be the desire but our response to it
We will desire something but since we don't have it we go the wrong way in getting it
2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
How do we respond to our desires?
Some desires are wrong but oftentimes some desires are right in the proper context
Physical intimacy is a good desire within biblical marriage
To be warmed by a fire is a good desire when there's a fireplace
But if you desire to be warm and you build a fire in the middle of this room it's not going to be a good the fire needs to be inside the fireplace
In the same way sex needs to be within marriage
So again how do we respond to our desires ?
Do we seek God for wisdom concerning our desires do we go to him and ask him if this desire is from the Holy Spirit or if this desire is from this world
Me wanting fame recognition and glory from men is not a godly desire
But me wanting recognition glory and honor from God is a good desire
I want to get to the end of my life and hear well done my good and faithful servant because that is far better than anything any person could say
Our passage in verse two ends with you do not have because you do not ask
do you ask God?
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
Biblically we are supposed to ask God to provide our daily bread
We are supposed to ask God to provide for us financially and give us the opportunities to work and achieve and grow
But we don't ask God for these things so that we can be puffed up with pride we ask God for these things so we can glorify him and live
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
According to the Westminster Confession of faith "Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."
When we see kids kingdom and live our life for him we become more and more satisfied than we could ever be with anything else
So do we see Gods kingdom in relationships
do we seek his kingdom in the workplace
do we seek his Kingdom in everything or do we seek ourselves?
and i want to Pivot,
If God has given you much, much is required
no matter if God has given us a little bit, a lot, or beyond what we could imagine each of us will be required to steward those gifts well
Whether the gifts are financial, spiritual or physical we are to Leverage these gifts for the Kingdom of God
To recap what are our desires?
Do we ask God Forward discernment and for fulfillment of these desires?
And when we do ask whose glory are we seeking ?
James continues in verse 4
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
James is making a clear distinction that if you look like the world talk like the world walk like the world you are probably of the world
There comes a day where God will separate us in revelation it's described as the great judgment where all will be laid bare the books will be opened and God will separate the sheep from the goats
What that means is God will separate those who were friends of the world from those who were friends of God
What do you think it means to be a friend of the world?
To be a friend of the world is to be someone who's comfortable with everything that the world is comfortable with some one who indulges in everything that the world indulges in
If you and I are regularly living like everyone else acting like everyone else enjoying the same sins as everyone else if this is a pattern of our life we are friends of the world
You know when you observe people you can pretty quickly tell who they're friends with in a social setting
At Youth Group I can tell which friends or which groups are friends with each other because they spend time with those people they talk to those people they laugh they joke with those people
If an outside person was able to watch us all day and all night 24/7 for a year would they say that we are a friend of God or a friend of the world
Who do we laugh with who do we spend time with what do we enjoy is it God or is it the world
Because I want to make something clear tonight we can't flirt with sin and flirt with God we can't sit on the fence
We are either all in or all out
30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
We cannot live lives where we secretly spend time with the world and publicly spend time at church and expect God to see us as his friends
Have you ever caught friends talking bad about you without you knowing and then you realize they really aren't your friends
Remember God is all knowing and we will be judged upon every idle word
And I want to take this moment to remind us that there is hope in Jesus if you have given your life to Jesus and accepted him as your Lord and savior
Then even though we can't walk this out perfectly God sees Christ's perfection and it calls us his friend
But if you look at your life and you see no friendship with God in it and you only see friendship with the world then I would really consider repenting and believing
And if you are a believer and you see a pattern of this where you're struggling
I want to remind you of Paul he struggled with sin and with righteousness
A friend of the world doesn't struggle he just chooses the world
A friend of God will struggle and that's why we have to seek God for victory in the struggle
Our passage in verse five
5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?
I want us to look at
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Remember that if we are Christians if we are friends of God we have been bought with a price
And remember that we are made in the image of God and God desires all to be saved
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Jesus paid a price and he desires us to be with him for eternity
If you're married to somebody you will be jealous if they give their attention their love and affection to somebody else
in the same way Jesus loves us and he wants a committed relationship with us where we are focused and surrendered to him because he is what is best for us
So we see this problem of our desires leading to fights and took quarrels
And now we get to this hope in verse 6 and moving on
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
James is about to show us what we need to do if we're struggling with a friendship with the world if we aren't friends of God he leaves us to the answer
Be humble god will give you Grace god will give you mercy god will give you love
If any of us in this room are struggling with friendship with the world and friendship with God then we need to humbly seek him ask him and submit to him
It's OK to go to God and say Lord I don't love you like I should right now and I don't really know what to do will you please help me
It's okay to humble yourself and say Lord I feel like I am becoming a friend of the world and I want to become a friend of you will you help me
It's OK to go to a pastor a friend an accountability partner and say hey I am struggling with these desires I am struggling with my friendship with the world
I feel myself being drawn back to who I used to be instead of being drawn to who God wants me to be will you pray for me
When we humble ourselves God will give us Grace
As Christians we can struggle with humility
When I was a kid I was a terrible liar
any time I played a game where there was like deception or lying involved like Mafia I was terrible
But as I got older growing up in the church and also struggling with friendship with the world I became a very good liar
Because I wasn't willing to humble myself and be honest about my struggles
Please don't let that be you tonight if you have struggles if you have desires that are not godly that you're seeking after please open up to God open up to friends open up two mentors because it will free you
In verse 7 it says
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
We need to be humble and submit to God if you're not comfortable sharing your struggles with people share it with God submit yourself to him and his authority
What this looks like is Jesus in the garden saying not my will but your will be done that is submission to God
This may mean apologizing to someone you don't want to apologize to this may mean confessing something you never wanted to tell anyone about this may mean changing your lifestyle in a way that you didn't expect to change
But if we submit ourselves to God and by doing so resist these temptations resist the devil he will flee from us
The closer we are to Christ the further we are from sin
So in this section are we humbling ourselves are we submitting ourselves to God
Because when we humble ourselves we now have the ability to draw near to God
Verse 8
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
What James is saying in verse 8 is that if we just try to seek after God he will appear he will seek after us
If I reach out to one of my parents and say Hey Let's get lunch they will reach back out and say yes what time where when
If I draw near to them they will draw near to me and God is perfect he is perfect in love mercy
In the parable of the prodigal son he went on his own did his own thing lost his inheritance and began walking back to his father's house
And his father ran to meet him because when we draw near to God he will draw near to us
But when we look at the rest of the passage it says
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
You see like I said when we draw near to God when we draw near to the light we become further from darkness we become further from a sin
But The thing is when we step into the light we can also see the stains on our clothes we can see the effect of our sin
When we draw near to God we will understand everything we were doing was so wrong we will understand the damage that we've caused and we will mourn
Their prodigal son when he came to his father was in tears saying except me as a slave and he was confused when he received love he was mourn and he was repenting
And this should be us if we have a season of darkness a season of distance when we run back to the father do we mourn do we allow ourselves to feel the weight of our sin and then feel the weight of the glory of what Christ did for us
Stepping into the light is scary because we know there's conviction we know that we will have to leave our sin behind and see the punishment and see the results of our sin
But the beautiful thing is when we are wretched when we mourn when we come humbly to God he will exalt us
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
When we draw near to God we step into the light and when we step into the light we see everything we've done there will be a day where the books are opened in every deed we have ever done in our life will be shown to us
And we will give an account for what we did
And what that means is we will answer and respond to the accusation of the judge
And if our response is humility before God on judgment day if our response is yes lord I have sinned but your son has paid the penalty for my sin then we will be exalted and be with him for eternity
But if we enter judgment day with pride and self justification we will not be exalted but we will be humbled for eternity
I know I talked a lot I know we covered a lot in closing I want us to think about these three things
Do we discern our desires and bring those desires to God
Are we a friend of the world or are we a friend of God
In this season are we walking into light or are we in the darkness
I want to reiterate that if you are a Christian if you are born again this will be a struggle no one will be perfect but if you are in a place where you don't even struggle with sin you just enjoy it show up to church on Sundays
Please consider whether you know the Lord or not and talk to someone about it tonight
Let's go ahead and break up into prayer groups
